A by-product of chemical processes and biomass energy generation, liquid carbon dioxide as a cleaning medium has a long shelf-life, supplied in cylinders or tanks.

CO2 SNOW-JET CLEANS MEDICAL PRODUCTS

Cleaning medical products demands newer, more advanced technology that offers a dry, non-aggressive, and residue-free solution: CO2 snow-jet cleaning. Implants, instruments, and aids need to be sterile and free of residues from production processes.

For implants, cannulas, surgical instruments, and other medical products, antibacterial cleanliness is mandatory, and since carbon dioxide is inherently anti-bacterial, dry, non-aggressive, and leaves no residues. When combined with the right process technology, CO2 snow-jet cleaning also offers low cost of ownership.

CO2 snow-jet cleaning works on non-porous or porous materials and internally cleans blind holes. In addition, combined features of cooling and cleaning replaces the coolant for dry machining of plastic parts.

Dry, residue-free

Liquid CO2 flows through the non-wearing, two-component ring nozzle of the system and expands upon exit to form fine CO2 crystals. A circular jacketed jet of compressed air bundles the crystals and accelerates them to supersonic speed. Uniform cleaning results are possible on large surfaces, where several nozzles are used.

When -78.5°C compressed air and snow impacts a surface it creates a thermal, mechanical, sublimation combination generating a solvent effect. These four cleaning mechanisms enable acp’s quattroClean system to remove filmic contamination, such as residues of cooling lubricants, process oils, polishing pastes, separating agents, and silicones, as well as particulate contamination – chips, dust, and abrasion. Non-combustible, non-corrosive, non-toxic CO2 snow is gentle on materials, making it suitable for delicate and finely-structured surfaces.

The jet’s aerodynamic force transports detached dirt away from the part and extracts it from the cleaning cell together with the sublimated CO2 gas. The workpieces emerge from cleaning dry, ready for additional processing or packaging.

Automation friendly

With its modular design, the compact quattroClean system can be adapted to customer requirements, allowing manual, partially-automated and even fully-automated cleaning systems to be developed for existing production, assembly, and packaging lines. Cleaning tests conducted at the acp technical center determine all the application’s process parameters, such as volume flows for compressed air and carbon dioxide, as well as the jet duration. Material properties and the contamination requiring removal are considered and these parameters can be filed as cleaning programs in the system control.

Suitable solutions

The quattroClean snow jet technology can remove ablation residues from injection-molded interconnect devices (MID) produced by laser direct structuring. Compared with ultrasonic or high-pressure washing processes, the quattroClean system can smooth the rough laser structures while cleaning, simplifying joining and assembly tasks.

A manufacturer of sensor systems uses acp snow jet technology to clean off particles before sensors are packaged. A hermetically-sealed cleaning cell integrates into a clean zone and uses a filter fan unit to supply clean air.

The in-line system cleans engine pistons before their surfaces are optically measured, working in the production system’s one-piece flow. The parts are cleaned by a robot at 11cm2/sec.

For die-cutting, the system removes production residues from strips immediately after cutting, a single-part cleaning step that replaces the commonly-used wet-chemical cleaning process.